New Frontier: Old Wounds
by Jarel Kortan
Summary: With Arnold away with his parents, Helga is now in command of the Serenity and is given the simple task of taking a group of students and their instructor to see a new star born but life has a way of bringing surprises into her life. Now she must face the past while keeping herself in one piece.


Hello again to you all, and thanks for **yardbird9 **for getting me back into Hey Arnold fan fiction. I know I left New Frontier with a bit of open ending and that was intentional and had meant to follow it up with subsequent stories but I was side tracked with other stories and also taking a venture into original fiction along with trying to learn more about the craft.

So It has been awhile but the lure of this fandom was too great to resist for too long and I came back to my roots so to speak. So now the new frontier continues with Helga in command of the Serenity while Arnold is away.

I hope you enjoy the this story and please share you thoughts in a review.

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Hey Arnold A New Frontier

Old Wounds

Chapter 1

Helga brushed her hair softly as she made her way back home after finishing up her schooling for the day at the one of the learning centers on Obrom III where she and her parents resettled after the treaty agreement with Cardassia. As she fixed herself a little from a sudden breeze from the west she heard her named called out and looked to see her new friend Laura whom she had meet a few years after moving in. Stopping in her tracks to let her friend catch up to her so they could talk with each other. Laura held onto the strap of her back pack to keep it from shifting to much from her quick pace.

Soon enough she had came up to Helga a little out of breath. "Hey Helga. how you doing?" she said in greeting. "I'm doing fine, the instructor was in a bit of a bad mood in that last class" Her friend thought for a moment to remember who Helga had for her last class of the day. "Um Mr. Benson?" Helga nodded at the name before she let out a sigh. "He is always kind of rough on us cause he fought against the Klingons back in the day and now I guess he feels though love is the way to go I guess." Laura just nodded again but not having ever been in his class and only hearing stories from the other students she could just imagine what it was like in his class.

"So what are you plans this weekend? some of us are going to the near by lake for some swimming, you in?"

Helga thought for a moment but before she could respond, in the distance an explosion shook them up and looked to the source of the sound. They each looked in the direction they heard it come from only to see a mass of smoke from a near by building and people running, some covered in dust while others were bleeding. Then the sounds of a ship's engine could be heard but before it could be seen there was five concentrated beams of light that soon turned into five humanoid figures.

Helga didn't recognize the species but they had a kind of purple scaled skin that had spikes all long their head with heavier groupings on their chins and foreheads. They carried rifles and began to open fire on anyone they could see. Helga felt a wave of panic overcome her as she began to run with Laura not far behind. As they ran beams of purple light screeched past them hitting mostly buildings but then as Helga ran past one person they fell down with a burnt hole in their chest. Her heart skipped a beat seeing the sight of someone die before her. An explosion next to her knocking her down but she momentarily couldn't hear anything except for a ringing in her ears.

"Helga, get up, Helga, Helga..." screamed her friend but she couldn't focus and only heard muffled sounds around her.

Before she could regain her focus her friend's face instantly went to shock and then she fell down, in a matter of moments reality hit Helga head on and she screamed bloody murder as her friend died before her. A group Jem'Hadar were approaching her rifles drawn at that moment she felt her life flash before her eyes then a flash of light above her and suddenly she felt herself back in her bed on the Serenity breathing heavily in a heavy sweat. In a moment she recalled where she was and it was just a nightmare she had just had of that tragic event years ago.

A chirp sound alerted her to the comm badge sitting on the night stand and so she picked it and gave it a tap.

"Pataki here." she said out of breath "Captain are you okay?" the tone of her voice didn't escape Gerald who was watching over the bridge at the moment. She calmed down her breathing and replied she was fine and that it was silly of him to ask then inquired to why he called. Her claim didn't fool him but he knew he couldn't be the one to confront her about it, instead he would leave that to Phoebe.

"Well captain I wanted to tell you we are approaching Starbase 20, we will be there within the hour." She sighed softly and nodded to herself as she got up to head to her dresser. "Very well Commander, I'll be there momentarily, Pataki out." A short time later after having taking a sonic shower and got dressed in her duty uniform she headed to the bridge but wasn't alone for very long. The soft tip tap of shoes on the carpeted floor behind her caused her to stop a moment and turned to see her long time friend Phoebe catching up to her. She groaned to herself having figured Gerald told her. "Commander" She attempted formality. "Did you have another nightmare Helga?"

"Even if I did, what makes you think I had a nightmare?"

"It might have something to do with your uniform." Helga looked down at her uniform and could see what Phoebe was talking about and it was easy to see how disheveled it was and so began to straighten out to make herself presentable. "Okay fine, I did have a nightmare, not that is any of your business."

"Helga you know I care about you, we all do. Your going to have to face this sooner or later. I could arrange for contact with Counselor Bliss." Helga took a moment to calm herself again. "I'm fine Phoebe just a hard night sleep is all, is that clear?"

Phoebe nodded as she started to turn back and head to sick-bay. "Well if you ever need anyone to talk to, you know where to find me." Helga nodded with a light smile. "Thanks Pheebs." Helga soon made her way to the turbo lift. "Bridge" she said as the doors closed and the lift began its trip the ships command center.

Many thoughts ran through her mind as she thought about past and present and wondered how she would get through it. She dug into her pocket and pulled out a slim metallic disc and clicked the button the side. A small holographic image of Arnold appeared giving her sense of hope as she always looked up to him as a source of strength. "I wish you were hear Arnold" she said to herself softly and let out a soft sight as the lift traveled to the bridge. She nearly lost track of time as the turbolift door opened and she quickly clicked off the small device and tucked it into her pocket before anyone could see what she had.

Stepping off the turbolift she saw Gerald standing up to greet her. He most of all had some trouble getting used to her command style but he was growing accustomed to it over the weeks she had been in command. "Report" She called out as she walked over to her chair in the center of the bridge and checked in with the control panel in the arm rest.

"All systems operating at peek efficiency and we are at warp 6.5 and should arrive at Starbase 20 to rendezvous with the Anchorage in less then an hour." Helga checked a few things on her control panel she could see Gerald take his seat out of the corner of her eye and then looked forward to the main viewer to see the stars passing by at a high rate of speed.

Starring out in the vastness of space was something he found her thoughts drifting to Arnold and how far they had come while on their mision together. She could scarcely believe they had come to terms with their feelings for each other and now one could only hope for a bright future together. Without realizing it, time passed and now the ship had reached its destination.

"Captain the Anchorage is hailing us." This brought Helga to full attention and looked at the screen now an ambassador class filled the screen. The ship shared similarities to the galaxy class and one could tell where the engineers drew inspiration from the ambassador's design elements.

"On Screen" Helga gave the command and the two way video communication link was established and the screen came alive with the visage of the ships captain. "Captain Pataki, its good to meet you. I'm Captain Pudney" She nodded "Its a pleasure to meet you, so where is the instructor and her class I'm supposed to pick up?" The other captain looked off screen for an acknowledgement from one of her officers. "Ah yes, she is on our transporter pad and the class will beam over after her, I wish I could take them Captain, the final collapse of the Trifid Nebula would be the most spectacular event to see."

Helga simple nodded as she wasn't always super interested in science like her friends were but she supported them in their efforts non the less. "I'm sorry that you have to miss out Pudney but we will make sure to have all out sensor arrays recording the final process." Pudney smiled and nodded. "Good, and take care captain, Pudney out." with that the screen reverted back to the image of the ship ahead of them. Meanwhile Helga began to make her way to the turbolift and signaled Gerald to follow suit so they would both greet the starfleet instructor that was taking the few lucky students to document the phenomenon.

"I'm sure Phoebe will be excited for this venture" Helga said to fill the empty silence in the lift. Gerald nodded in response, "Yeah that is all she has been talking about these past few days since she heard that we were picked to oversee the collapse of the nebula." He couldn't help but let out a small laugh as he thought about Phoebe's excitement. "I'm sure Arnold would have loved to seen it too" She said followed by a soft sigh and looked down a moment then looked back up when she felt a hand on her shoulder. "Listen, I know you have your doubts about all this but trust me, Arnold wouldn't have asked you to be in command if he didn't feel you were qualified"

Helga let a smile cross her face for a moment then went to try and hide it but was a fruitless attempt now that Gerald saw her smile. Exiting the turbolift the duo stepped into the transporter room and took positions to welcome their visitor. Once she was ready she nodded to the transporter chief "Energize." Was all she said as she turned to look at the pad then saw the gleaming particles of light fill the air in the overall shape of person and in a matter of seconds began to come together into a more defined shape before the person could see but even before they materialized fully Helga got a sinking feeling in her gut. A second later and the person was there before here in the flesh and all she heard before they came straight at her was "Oh baby sister its you" then stumbled back from the hug she got from her.

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Even in space Helga can't escape her older sister. Well we will see how this goes and how long she can put up with her.


End file.
